


Find the Sun in the Dark Side of Your Shadow

by overlymetaromantic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Black Paladin Lance (Voltron), Gen, I mean probably anyway, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron)-centric, Red Paladin Allura, Shiro (Voltron) Has a Clone, Shiro is a clone theory, let's say, like PLEASE CONSIDER, lion hopping taken to the max, some ships if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 20:38:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13772091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overlymetaromantic/pseuds/overlymetaromantic
Summary: (Sometimes, Lance wonders if he was part of it too, why Keith left; that if there was something he could’ve done differently as Keith’s right hand, maybe they wouldn’t have this distance between them right now.)(Now’s not the time to think about that,now’s not the time.)





	Find the Sun in the Dark Side of Your Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: this was originally going to be a comic about how Lance might get to pilot the Black Lion, but then I realized that would require drawing giant robot lions so I turned into a fic instead lol You can find what I did manage to draw of it [here](http://overlymetaromantic.tumblr.com/post/171188558693/fun-fact-this-was-originally-going-to-be-a-full) if you're so inclined; otherwise, thanks to anyone who gives this a read, and I hope you enjoy!

"What do you mean, that wasn't really Shiro?"

Distance and technology makes Keith’s voice come out tinny through the communicator, but Lance can still hear the smallness in his question, the vulnerability and fear at what the answer might be. Lance wishes there was an easier way to do this, but then, there are a lot of things he wishes, and Lance learned early to get used to not getting what he wants. Lance scrubs a hand over his eyes; he can’t bring himself to look at the screen he’s holding in his hand.

(" _You were his right hand man," Hunk had said. "If there’s anyone he’ll listen to, it’s you."_

God, Lance hopes he's right.)

"We don’t—know," Lance says, the words staggered in a way that's sure not to inspire confidence. He swallows, the dryness of his throat making the action sting. "It all happened so fast; we were on a mission, and then there was this codeword, and then—"

The truth of it is, Lance isn’t entirely sure what happened. From the moment not-Shiro turned, the rest of the mission devolves into a blur in Lance’ mind; he remembers realizing something had gone very, very wrong when Shiro came to a sudden standstill mid-mission; he remembers him turning around with a flash of yellow eyes, before Shiro’s robotic arm was bearing down on him and the rest of Lance’s memory goes black. It was Hunk who told him later he had gotten smashed into a wall; it was sheer luck that the force of it hadn’t been fatal.

In any case, Lance thinks it best that Keith doesn’t hear what few details Lance has to share—though what comes next isn’t all that much better, to be fair. "—Long story short, we managed to get him in a pod, but—whoever he is, he hasn’t existed for more than a year."

Lance can hear Keith’s breathing stutter on the other end of the line, and he winces despite himself, running his hand down his face. He still can’t bring himself to look at the screen as the silence burns between them; considering the literal days it has taken Lance to come to terms with the fact that this isn’t actually a never-ending nightmare, he can only imagine what’s going through Keith’s mind right now. He had left for the sake of the team, convinced that Shiro was the better leader for them, only to now discover the person he left for wasn’t even who he thought he was. Lance knows Keith didn’t like playing leader to their Voltron, but he also knows he wouldn’t have gone if he didn’t think he was leaving them in good hands; for all his faults, he was a good leader like that.

(Sometimes, Lance wonders if he was part of it too, why Keith left; that if there was something he could’ve done differently as Keith’s right hand, maybe they wouldn’t have this distance between them right now.)

(Now’s not the time to think about that, _now’s not the time_.)

"In any case, we think Zarkon’s witch friend—uh, Haggar—has the real Shiro, now." That’s according to Lotor, anyway. Lance highly suspects that he knew before anyone else they hadn’t been following the same Shiro they thought they were. There was something in his lack of surprise, in his immediate steps to try to take control of the team before Allura had sent him off to lead his own "investigation". It’s nothing he can prove, but still; he suspects.

Lance is snapped out of his mental tangent by the sound of movement, and he looks up just in time to see Keith turning away from the communicator, expression hard.

"I’ll gather the Blade. We’ll go after her."

"Wha—" Keith is already three-quarters off the screen by the time Lance registers what Keith said. Lance jerks forward, like he can somehow physically stop him from leaving halfway across the galaxy. "No, no no no, buddy, no!"

Keith freezes and glances back, though he doesn’t return to his previous place in front of the screen. Lance tilts the device he’s holding with a scowl, as though that’ll warp space into making Keith meet his eye.

"What, Lance," Keith says tightly. Every inch of his body language is screaming he’s about to run away, but he’s frowning in the direction of where Lance must be swaying his image on the screen with such a familiar tint of annoyance that for the briefest tick things almost feel normal. Lance takes a deep breath, just barely suppressing a hitch. The floor is hard where he’s sitting crosslegged, and he uses the ache to ground himself before he dives in.

"Keith, you’re the only one of us who’s piloted the Black Lion." Keith inhales sharply, and some part of Lance immediately thinks, _this isn’t going to work_. He keeps going. "We need you here, with us, with Voltron. We need you to lead."

"I," Keith stops, like the word gets stuck in his throat. "Can’t."

Something like dread grips at the back of Lance’s neck. "Keith—"

"I was a terrible leader," Keith murmurs over him. It shouldn’t cut him off as cleanly as it does, being as soft as it is. Lance tightens his grip around the communicator; he’s never wished more to be able to reach out and touch someone than now.

"And we weren’t the best team," Lance counters, more honest than he’d meant it to be. _He_ hadn’t been the best right hand. (If he had been, Keith would have stayed.) "That’s not your fault, dude."

"I’m sorry." Lance’s stomach drops as he realizes Keith is reaching forward to turn off the call. The worst thing is Keith actually _does_ sound genuinely sorry, but Lance has never wanted an apology less in his life. He hears himself make a noise in desperation, anything to get Keith to _stop_. It’s impossible to tell if the sound manages to cross the distance, but Lance sees Keith hesitate, hand hovering just from cutting their connection off. This is it, this is his chance to say something that’ll actually _work_ , but nothing is coming to mind. He can only stare dumbly as Keith flickers his gaze over to Lance one last time, expression somber but set. "You’ll think of something. You always do. I’ll do everything I can to help from here."

"Keith—" Lance just barely manages to choke out, only to be met with the dispassionate beeping of a disconnected call. No, no, _no_. " _Keith_!" he tries again, but it’s well past too late. Lance slams his fist onto the floor, ignores the dash of pain to seize his jacket off the ground and shove himself back up to his feet in a scrambled rush to get out. It takes everything he has not to throw the communicator across the room. " _Dammit_!"

***

Lance isn’t sure how he got the reputation of being the emotional-support-guy of the group; really, he hadn’t even realized he’d gained it until Hunk had given him that goddamned communicator, sounding so sure when he’d told him he should be the one to call Keith, that of all of them he’d know to say the right things. And maybe he’s pulled that off in the past, but now, seeing the rest of the team waiting anxiously by the Black Lion, all Lance can think is, he’s _really fucking bad at this_.

Lance shoves his hands farther down into his pockets, forcing himself forward. There really is no point delaying facing their disappointment, is there.

It’s Pidge who notices him first. It only takes her one look at his countenance for Lance to tell she already knows. Her arms tighten where she’s already got them clutched across her chest.

"He's not coming back, is he."

It’s not even a question, just a cold statement of facts. Lance can’t keep himself from flinching, which only causes Pidge to glower harder. Her words have alerted the rest of the team to his presence; Hunk and Allura look up at him with wide eyes, fearful and upset respectively, while Matt watches his sister with an increasingly concerned look. Coran has already placed a hand on Allura’s arm, a preemptive comfort for the bad news Lance is sure to deliver. Lance presses his forehead into the palm of his hand, the beginnings of a headache already starting to form as he tries to come up with _anything_ he could say.

"Look we’ll think of something—"

"No!" Pidge cuts him off, sharp enough that Lance startles back. "We deserve an answer! We supported him when he wanted to go join the Blade! Why won’t he come back now? Doesn’t he care about us at all?"

Pidge's voice is wobbling dangerously. She jerks away from where Matt tries to put his hand on her shoulder, rubbing fiercely at the corner of her eye. Lance feels like he’s been slapped, though it’s Hunk who makes a noise like he’s been hit. "Of course he does!" Hunk says, though it’s clear even as he speaks that his confidence is waning. "He—he has to, doesn’t he?"

"Well he’s not acting like it!" Pidge turns on Hunk now, ignoring the soft, "Katie," from her brother. Allura just looks miserable where Coran’s still holding her, her fingers grasped together so tightly her knuckles are nearly white. Matt catches Lance’s eye, his face betraying the same desperation Lance can feel pulsing through his veins. Nothing good is going to come of the team devolving into an argument now; Lance needs to calm them down, _fast_.

"Hey, hey!" he says, holding his hands up against the immediate glare Pidge levels at him. "Look, it sucks, but we can’t do anything about Keith, alright? He said no, so we just need to come up with another plan. None of us are feeling all that great right now, there’s no point in fighting about it!"

"What are we _supposed_ to do, then, huh?" Pidge snaps. "What’s _your_ grand plan to save the day? Because last I checked, we kinda need the Black Lion, and for that we kinda need Keith!" It’s obvious Lance doesn’t have an answer as he keeps his gaze firmly aimed away from her, though watching Hunk’s increasingly distressed expression isn’t exactly better. Pidge lets out a snarl. (He’s bad at this, he’s so, so bad at this, why did Hunk ever think he could do this at all?) "So what? What should we do? I know you have your whole _thing_ about Keith, but the rest of us can’t all just bounce back like you!"

"Is…is that what you think this is?" Lance can’t help the hurt creeping into his tone; it’s not even what he entirely meant to say, but for as terrible as he is at this, the insinuation _stings_. "That I don’t—what, that I just don’t care?"

Pidge’s expression is wide and watery:  it seems she’s aware she’s crossed a line, but it’s not enough to stop Lance from spilling out the vitriol that’s been roiling in his gut since he first entered the room.

"You’re right, okay? I _don’t_ have a plan, we don’t have the Black Lion, and we don’t have _Keith_ —all we have is us! Is that what you wanna hear? I mean, fuck, we didn’t even notice Shiro wasn’t really Shiro until he was literally trying to _kill_ us, what the hell can _we_ even do, right? But we don’t have a choice! I want Keith here too, but this isn’t about what _I_ want; it doesn’t matter what any of us _want_ right now, because what we fucking _need_ is to pull together as a team and figure out how we’re going to get our friends back!"

The room’s gone completely silent by the end of Lance’s tirade, his last words ringing in the air while the back of his neck burns. Some fucking motivational speaker he is; Coran says something, but Lance can’t actually register it over the buzzing in his ears. (Keith actually thought Lance would know what to do:  him, the goddamn _joke_ of the team, when Lance hadn’t even done right enough by Keith to bring him back; now _Lance_ is the one tearing the team apart, isn’t he—fuck, _fuck_ how did he get this so _wrong_?)

The thought is a chilling one, and the anger drains out of Lance in one go. It’s not often he lets himself get genuinely angry like this. "Just," he says, softer this time, "we can’t afford to fight each other right now, alright? Like, we kinda got bigger problems to deal with." _No shit_. Lance grits his teeth. "Keith said no ‘cause apparently he felt so bad about how he led us that I guess he thought no leader would be better than him. We didn’t support him when he needed us to, and that’s on all of us, but we can still support each other _now_."

Lance sees Allura gasp:  he has no idea which part of what he said might have caused that response, but his stomach twists all the same. It doesn’t register she’s actually looking past him until he suddenly becomes aware of a growing presence at his back. He doesn’t even get the opportunity to turn around before it seizes at the back of his mind, and _pulls_.

It feels like the floor drops out from under him, but Lance doesn’t fall with it. For a split second he’s left floating in the vast nothingness of space, the room disappearing around him as a roar fills his entire being before he’s dropped back into reality as quickly as he’d left it. Lance sucks in a harsh gasp of air, his body reduced the adrenaline coursing through him. (What just happened?) "W-what?"

The rest of the group is still looking past him; Coran is actually beaming, though everyone else looks as shocked as Lance currently feels. He slowly turns around to see the Black Lion has risen to its feet, towering above him with its head tilted down towards Lance, almost considering. Lance has gone from having his heart racing to suddenly not being able to breathe at all.

"But—me?" Lance can’t help the disbelief lacing the question, the words coming out small even as he reaches a shaking hand out. The Black Lion dips forward until it bumps into his palm. Lance inhales sharply as the connection sparks through his mind once again—it’s less overwhelming this time, though it’s still a lot like stepping off the edge of a cliff.

Lance feels a hand touch down on his shoulder, but he doesn’t look back to confirm who it is just yet. "It’s your call, buddy," Hunk says; Lance can hear his voice shaking ever so slightly, but his grip is steady. Lance feels Pidge move to his other side, reaching out to clutch tightly at his sleeve as she looks up at him. He’s unsure if the expression on her face is regret or not, but he shifts back a little to give her an easier grasp, and she takes the opportunity instantly.

The Black Lion is warm to the touch, even as Lance lets his hand fall away. "Someone's gonna need to pilot Red," he finally says, voice distant to his own ears. He sees Allura nod out of the corner of his eye, taking lead instantly now that she has something she can order her team to do.

"Matt!" she says decisively, though it’s Matt’s response of, "On it!" that gets Lance to look properly over at her. Her shoulders are set back as she stands tall, no longer holding herself against the weight of the world. Even with so little to hold on to, she takes back control and commands it like only royalty can. It’s something he finds deeply admirable about her; after all, Lance clearly has no idea how to do that on his own.

It’s in that instant Lance realizes what he needs to do, and he spins around, accidentally jerking himself out of Hunk and Pidge’s holds.

"No, wait!"

Matt stops mid-step, looking back over at Lance. "Matt, you go to Blue," Lance says. Matt gives him a brief look of surprise before he offers him a salute.

"Yessir!" he responds, before he resumes his sprint out of the hanger, Pidge taking off after him. Lance turns back to Allura, determinedly powering past the betrayed look she’s giving him, her hands once again clutching each other tight. He takes ahold of her shoulders.

"Allura," he says, pleased when he voice comes out steady, "I want you to go to Red."

Allura immediately stiffens under his grasp. She’s no longer visibly upset, which Lance takes a victory in, but she is plainly confused, before it settles into worry. "But—"

"Ah ah ah! No buts! We will not be having any buts in this household!" Lance lifts a hand up to shush her protest; Allura looks utterly bemused, and Lance can feel a smile tugging at his lips for the first time in a while. He gives her a reassuring squeeze on the arm, letting his expression blossom into a proper grin. "Trust me," he says, "I’ve got a good feeling about this."

***

Despite being technically smaller, the Red Lion looms in a way the Blue Lion does not. Allura eyes the creature warily; while she knows it’s not a pettiness she can currently afford, the sting of rejection doesn’t heal easily, and being blocked out by the Red Lion in particular had _hurt_. Its barrier is down, though, its mouth open enough that she can at least get inside.

Of course, getting physically in had never been the problem. Allura genuinely doesn’t know what Lance is thinking with this order, but she sighs and strides forward, head held high.

The same heavy silence weighs down on her as she makes her way towards the pilot’s chair. She sits down delicately, but can’t bring herself to reach for the controls just yet. Instead, she folds her hands together in her lap, frowning down at the ever unresponsive dash of the Red Lion. What she’s meant to do now, she has no idea. What can she even say now that she hadn’t already tried the last time?

Perhaps that’s the core problem here:  that Allura is over-analytical of something that’s supposed to be beyond anyone’s control. She’s had plenty of time to reflect since failing to convince the Red Lion that she’d be a worthy paladin, the least of which being on how learning to connect with Blue has cast everyone else’s connection with their Lions in a whole new light.

Allura knows she isn’t like Keith, regardless of Coran’s insistences that they’re actually quite alike. If she were to ever describe the Red Lion as having a type, it would be someone like Keith—perhaps even more than her increasingly faint memories of her father. True, Lance himself took to piloting Red nearly as naturally as he’d piloted Blue, his surprising bouts of impulsivity shining through despite being someone so prone to complaining; but she’s not like Lance either. He’d sounded so confident when he told her to go to the Red Lion; Allura briefly entertains the notion that this is vengeance for his own loss of the Blue Lion, but she’s equally quick to dismiss the thought. That’s not something he would do.

Piloting has never been about what any one individual wants, it’s about what’s needed for Voltron. But piloting the Blue Lion is a privilege like nothing Allura has ever experienced:  the feeling is indescribable, and she wouldn’t want to give that up for the world. Yet she may have to, once again for circumstances beyond her control. It’s not Lance, it’s this _war_ that is determined to take away everything she cares for most.

Lance wants her in the Red Lion. (Lance needs her in the Red Lion?)

"I’m not my father," she says aloud, the words echoing back in the silence of the Lion’s chamber. She’s not like Keith, she’s not like Lance, but most importantly, she’s beginning to understand she isn’t even wholly like her father. He’s been taken away from her three times now, each just as cruel as the last, and Allura doesn’t know how to handle a fourth. It’s like she’s always losing him, no matter how hard she tries. Maybe she’s never meant to get her father back—

—But what she can do is save this new family she’s cobbled together through Voltron. Both Shiro and Keith have been lost to the stars like her father was, but unlike her father, she can get them _back_. Allura grips at the controls with a ferocity that surprises even herself. "I know I’m not, but that’s not why I’m here. Our paladins are in trouble. We have to do this, _please_."

For a long moment, there is nothing, but if Allura has learned anything about herself, it’s that she can be stubborn too. Then, piece by piece, the Lion lights up.

Allura lets out a shuddering breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. It’s not precisely a connection, not like what she’s sparked with Blue, but it is a response. An alliance—and that’s something Allura knows how to navigate. The wave of relief hits her harder than she cares to admit, and she slumps forward, hands still griping the controls. (Maybe she does have more in common with the preceding Red paladins than she thinks.) " _Thank you_."

***

Perhaps the biggest sign that Lance is thoroughly out of his depth is that his first thought upon clamoring into the Black Lion’s pilot’s chair had been that the Black Lion is _big_. He’s sat in this chair before, he should know this already, but apparently it’s entirely different with the lights on and the engine thrumming with energy. The shadows feel heavier, somehow, thrown into a starker contrast by the glow of the dashboard than when the entire body is dark.

Lance had given the order for everyone to head to their Lions, but seeing as he’d already sent Matt and Allura out to (hopefully) connect with their new rides, he only had Pidge and Hunk to actually give the order to. After seeing her brother off, Pidge had headed over to Green on her own without any real need for input from Lance, as he found after radioing her over the comms, so really he just had to tell Hunk he should go to Yellow, which, considering it’s Hunk, doesn’t exactly feel like it counts as an order. Leaders are supposed to give out orders, aren’t they?

Sitting out in space like this in the Black Lion reminds Lance distinctly of when he was a kid and would try walking around the house in his dad’s shoes; they were comically oversized and blatantly not meant for him, and while Lance doesn’t really want to unpack that metaphor any further, it still feels uncomfortably apt. Even growing up in a large family, Lance hasn’t felt the pressure of proving himself quite like he is now; of course, then again, he’s never had the fate of the entire universe riding on his shoulders like this until now. It’s one thing to be following in their footsteps, but between losing Shiro and Keith, there are a lot of shoes for Lance to fill.

There’s a distinctly chastising flick at the back of Lance’s brain—it feels uncannily like he’s being scolded, and the idea of the _Black Lion_ scolding him like a parent is so surreal that it actually stops his downward spiral in its tracks. Apparently the Black Lion knows this, because it pushes harder against Lance’s mind:  it’s more the shape of a thought than actual words, but Lance can still piece out the same shared, singular want.

_(Get them back. Bring them home._

_Keep the team together. Bring them back home.)_

Lance lets out a shaky breath. Alright. He has no idea _how_ , but he can do that.

"Lance!"

Lance pulls himself out of his thoughts to see Allura has appeared on the Black Lion’s screen. She looks more than a little exhausted, but she is smiling, her face aglow under a soft red light. She’s calling him through the Black Lion, so that means—

"Yes!" Lance blurts out without really meaning to, though he feels a little better at the echoing cheers from Matt and Hunk over the comm. He even hears Pidge huff out a laugh.

"It seems you were right again," Allura says, her smile curling into something more distinctly amused. Lance just beams back.

"Hey, it’s all you," he says. "I mean I also totally called it, you know I wouldn’t want anyone else as my right hand." He pauses, and then adds, "No offense, Hunk."

"Absolutely none taken, dude, I don’t think there’s any universe where I’d want to be piloting Red," Hunk replies immediately. Pidge laughs over the comms again; it's a shock to realize just how long it’s been since he’s heard any of the team sound this _light_. _He_ hasn’t felt this light, not since Keith left them and then Shiro was effectively taken away from them for a third freaking time. Those two really need to work on that.

"Alright, let’s look alive, people!" Lance calls out. "Coran, we’re looking good to go?"

"Ugh, I’m already getting flashbacks to our Garrison days," Pidge immediately groans; Hunk echoes her with a groan of his own, both of them ignoring Lance’s petulant shout of, " _Hey_!"

Coran, meanwhile, cheerfully calls back, "Roger that, team leader!" Well, at least Lance has definitely got one guy on his side. He can’t help but preen at the title, just a little bit. Fears of failing everyone and getting them killed be damned, he gets the glory of being _leader_.

(Oh _boy_ does Lance hope he doesn’t fail everyone and get them all killed; glory is nothing if it comes at the cost of his friends—and something tells him that was the right thing to think as the Black Lion rumbles under his fingertips.)

"Let’s sound off, is everyone accounted for?" If pulling out cliche leader phrases is something that irritates Pidge, then Lance is definitely going to increase doing the thing, and he doesn’t bother holding back a grin at her plainly huffy, " _Present_ ," in response. Hunk offers him a much more enthusiastic, "Here!", as do Allura from Red and Matt in Blue.

"You’ve got me as well!" Coran rounds them off. Lance has successfully executed one order:  everyone’s got their Lions, so that leaves the next logical step. Lance breathes in, slow and steady, like he’s lining up a shot.

"Okay," he says. Strangely enough, whether or not they can still come together as Voltron isn’t all that high on Lance’s list of Things to be Concerned About, but considering his luck, they need to make sure it’s something they’ve still got on their resume. "Let’s form Voltron!"

The rush of five minds synching up as one is the same regardless of the Lion—Lance discovered this the first time he formed Voltron with Red, but being at the head of it now is like being at the center of a hurricane. It’s a whirlwind of thoughts and feelings that both aren’t his own and are, before it settles into a single, cohesive drive to step forward and _fight_.

"Oh my goodness, I’m a leg!" he hears Matt exclaim, followed by Allura’s response of, “Isn’t it _wonderful_?” as Hunk lets out an affirmative whoop. Lance turns them around to face the vast expanse of space. The connection with his fellow five paladins hums through him, though there’s a keen awareness of the gaps left in the team where Keith and Shiro should be.

Keith might not technically be as lost as Shiro, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel just as out of reach:  but maybe now they have their chance to bring them both home. Having Voltron doesn’t necessarily mean they have a plan. There are so many things they still need to do before putting any kind of rescue mission into action—finding Shiro’s actual location being the _least_ of that—but they have hope. And right here and now, Lance thinks that’s a pretty important first step.

For all his nerves, it’s the excitement Lance can feel pounding in his chest that drips it’s way down through the rest of the team, and he can feel a similar sentiment from each of them resonating back at him, their convictions just as strong. He leans forward in the Black Lion’s seat with a grin. They can do this. ( _They can do this!_ ) "Alright, people:  let’s go get back our family!"

**Author's Note:**

> (I might??? do a second chapter for this???? It probably depends on how thoroughly season 5 demolishes my theories ahaha so we shall see.)
> 
> In the meantime, I'm on both [tumblr](http://overlymetaromantic.tumblr.com/) and also very occasionally [twitter](https://twitter.com/metaromantic), feel free to hit me up!


End file.
